Tuesday, March 28, 2017

One cannot help but reflect upon the truth of the Third Law of SJW when presented with this emotionally incontinent confessional that passes for a "book review" by one Jon Milne. Note that we are told this is not the first time Mr. Milne has felt the need to "review" a book by Castalia House, even though there are no other reviews listed by anyone of that name.

It's fascinating to see that SJWs are so confident that the relevant authority will prove amenable, or at least indifferent, that they are willing to so openly admit their violations of the review guidelines as well as their intentions of attempting to manipulate Community Content.

Much like with my review for "SJWs Always Lie" - inexplicably not subtitled "My Inability To Somehow Not Notice Two Chapter 5s During My Awesome Editing Skills" - I am delighted to admit I did not read "The Corroding Empire". I did not need to. It was not the cover itself that convinced me of giving it a 1 star review, but rather the attitude and motivations the publisher had in creating the cover that provides all the justification I need.

Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (Harry Seldon) on the cover, as well as not having the identical artwork, fonts, and positioning of the words as an other considerably higher selling book. In other words, the book by Mr Seldon would be allowed to stand on it's own two feet and attract judgment purely for it's literary merits, or lack thereof, and then attract those who want to read it into buying and scoring the publisher some bucks. It stands to reason that if the book was of high quality, then people would buy it, and the would not need to rely on any cheap publicity stunts based on trying to score political points.

And yet it is precisely this desperation on the part of Vox Day - a guy who seriously holds the hilariously stupid view of "White Genocide" that mixed race babies will totally cause the destruction of Earth - that leaves a permanent black mark on this book and completely strips it of whatever credibility it might have as a literary work. Because no matter what Mr Beale may insist about how totally awesome he thinks this book is, it's quite evident that he was clearly not confident in the ability of this literary work to sell without saddling it with a spectacularly lame gimmick as part of a great big amount of bitterness he has in relation to the success of John Scalzi.

It's truly amazing how much sour grapes old Theodore is full of that Mr Scalzi has a highly lucrative book deal worth millions of dollars, something which Beale is nowhere close to ever achieving. Other "highlights" of Beale's obsession with Scalzi include the Hugo Awards of 2015 and 2016, wherein Beale thought-policed his mindless drones, uh, I mean, followers into voting specific works dictated by a slate onto the ballots, all for the self-entitled purpose of winning awards they somehow feel entitled to, and to stick it to the so-called "SJWs" and "CHORFs" who are totally working behind the scenes to steal the whole science fiction genre from "TrueFans(tm) like Voxy and his Dread Milk minions. I mean, they never exactly elaborate how this conspiracy actually works, but still...

This is the mindset behind the "Corroding Empire's" publication. Not one motivated purely by a desire to please fans and for the love of writing, but by petty squabbles fuelled by inferiority and insecurity complexes on Theodore Beale's part, as well as a ridiculous obsession with needing vindication from awards. Perhaps Beale should research some of the most highly regarded movies of all time, many of which did not ever win or even get nominated for Oscars, and do the same for music albums and TV shows and video games etc and their equivalent awards which they never won, and then he could maybe reach a much-needed epiphany about whatever "vindication" he so desperately craves.

In closing, I present a contrast of an author who used and still uses a pseudonym for her writing with far more dignity and grace, even if her real name ended up getting leaked. I talk of course of the highly successful J.K. Rowling, currently writing as Robert Galbraith for the Cormoron Strike series of crime novels, all of them highly rated and highly selling. And of course, one can't forget that according to TheRabidPuppiesDotCom, Hugo Award Nominee and perhaps the world's greatest author Chuck Tingle has a counter going for how each book is doing: Scalzi's "Collapsing Empire" has an Amazon Best-seller's Rank of #235, where as "Corroding Empire" by Harry Telson is ranked #1671. Add another notch of failure to Castalia House's marketing strategy.

Now comes the part where I get an outraged phone call from Castalia House decrying me for my "WrongThink". I could definitely use a laugh.

I'm sure Tor Books is ever so relieved that the first book in its big bet on John Scalzi has managed to outsell an ebook from an independent publisher. No doubt that was their metric for success. As for my supposed sour grapes, I note I signed my first million-dollar contract was when I was 27 and it was not the most recent one. I very much doubt that anyone who has read a reasonable portion of both our collected works would believe for a second that I would ever wish to trade my bibliography for his. And, quite to the contrary of SJW assumptions, I sincerely wish Scalzi's contract had been ten times bigger in monetary terms; Tor delenda est is the point, after all, as Scalzi is little more than Patrick Nielsen Hayden's creation. Even Scalzi's first unprovoked attack on me in 2005 was inspired by PNH, the corrupt, beating heart of all that is wormwood and rotten in science fiction.

As for the "failure" of Corrosion, those reviewers who have, unlike Mr. Milne, troubled to actually read the novel, have almost uniformly been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is actually a solid science fiction novel in its own right. Castalia House does not publish Tor-like trash, not even when we are gleefully sowing chaos and havoc. From the latest reviews of the first book of The Corroding Empire:

Did not know what to expect. Was very pleasantly surprised to discover a first rate SciFy novel. An involved tale of what can go wrong when dimly understood digital algorithms developed by aware AI machine intelligences tightly control the galaxy. Until they don't. Then, the fun starts.

I was reading very late at night. I finished an intense chapter detailing a farmer in a life and death fight with systemic wide algo-decay, and went to sleep. A few hours later I was awakened by the sound of our electricity going off, I drowsily thought to myself, 'oh, drat, more algo-decay.' and then woke up more fully into my own world. Kind of cool when a book does world building that well, isn't it?

I read "Foundation" and it's sequel 50+ years ago and remember them as about a 4 star duo. Enjoyed the Main character, a robot who goes through many changes. The idea of "corrosion" due to basic algorithms over centuries is good. The science ideas are fascinating,, so I enjoyed the book.

I remember Foundation as having a general optimistic tone, where the viewpoint characters overcome the challenges of their day guided by the all-knowing ghost of Hari Seldon. There was a sense of inevitability that was only punctured in later books. Corrosion takes an almost opposite track, illustrating a decaying galaxy where chaos reigns and even the far-sighted seer dedicated to restoration is stymied by events and very human reactions. Without going into spoilers, the world of the Corroding Empire is a darker place than the world of Foundation. Yet this darker world also makes the bright spots of the story all the more hopeful and rewarding.

I know this book is based on Asimov's Foundation, which is a book I found amusing but not terribly compelling. I actually found this book to be much more interesting, not least because A) the premise was comparatively much more novel and B) it actually had characters I cared about. If you are too dim or humorless to get the obvious joke, this really says a lot more about you than the author or seller. I find it incredibly impressive that this was written essentially on a dare and turned out as well as it did.

The simple fact is that Book One of The Corroding Empire: Corrosion, by Johan Kalsi, was an absolutely smashing success in the eyes of everyone involved, as the fake review by Mr. Milne so beautifully demonstrates. It was a fantastic performance by the highly efficient Castalia House team, wonderfully supported by the ever-loyal Castalia House readers, and after a bit of confusion at the start, even our new friends at Amazon came through in the end.

Seriously, though, why do SJWs always pretend they are laughing, even when you can see they are shaking with rage?

They're big science fiction fans too. In addition to not reading the books they review, SF-SJWs aren't even familiar with the classic SF canon:

EDIT: My bad on the "Harry Seldon" thing. An honest mistake. I've never read any Asimov novels, the closest exposure I've had being the "I, Robot" movie released in the mid-2000s, which I remember liking. Nothing a trip to my local library can't fix. Duly changed those references in my review anyway.

In fairness, I very much doubt John Scalzi has read very many Asimov novels either. I doubt he's even finished the original Foundation trilogy.

99 Comments:

It's hard to see any progress when this continues, yet there is a surety that deep down, we are doing the right thing. Evil is coddled by the left, so the main thing is to neutralize them by keeping to core principles.

Takes a lot of resilience and faith, but who ever said it was going to be easy?

Just reported abuse on that clown for leaving a fake review as he himself admitted. It's amazing how hypocrisy/projection doesn't even register with lefTARDS, well not really since they are mentally ill.

What an abominable eyesore of a fake review. And written by someone with a 3rd grader's level of grammar skills. From repeating the same words over and over, not knowing the difference between "it's" and "its", constant use of loud modifiers, reusing "totally", and misusing basic idioms.

"Seriously, though, why do SJWs always pretend they are laughing, even when you can see they are shaking with rage?"

I have seen this before. Snowflakes and SJW's are unable to play and do not comprehend the "Get under your skin" game. Rednecks grow up playing it; presumably as socialization to control our tempers so that we may not be goaded into unthinking action. An amygdala workout.

Kinda hard for a single mom to impart this to her son.

Games men play that snowflakes can't. They see it. They can't do it. They try to fake it. Everyone can tell.

"Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (Harry Seldon)" needle scratch

Chortle, now that's a classic one-star review. I'm actually hoping it's not a parody by some smart aleck.

You know, these reviewers need to do a little bit more actual reading. Merely scanning through the Scalzi pastiche-yet-parody for the politically approved sex scenes -- so brave, by the way -- is simply not enough.

Did anyone else read it as: "A massive inferiority and insecurity complex dooms this book review to failure from the start"

Milne has to be pretty butthurt to write a lengthy review of a book he admits never reading. I wouldn't read an actual review that long let alone Milne's womanly drivel. I need to buy more Castalia books. Not only are they good books but they draw out the crazies to dance for my entertainment.

This fake reviewer isn't just dumb. It proves the thesis of Sad Puppies: that the people reading the message fiction don't read scifi, have never read scifi, nor know anything about the scifi canon.

They are only in scifi now because they saw something else fun that they knew needed to be converged.

So while they have no idea who Hari Seldon is, yet claim to love scifi, the fact is this. They don't need to know.

They have a secret weapon.

They have magic moon rocks. Sprinkle a little bit of the magic moon rocks over that gay Asian short story and it'll literally rain scifi. Sprinkle a little bit over If I Gave A Mouse Some Cheese, and it turns into a velociraptor. Sprinkle it over mediocre space opera and voila, gone are the pronouns.

" a guy who seriously holds the hilariously stupid view of "White Genocide" that mixed race babies will totally cause the destruction of Earth"

I sometimes say, and genuinely believe, that if everyone woke up tomorrow one-quarter genetically black, the entire human race would die.

I suppose technically that's an overstatement, since quadroon Bantus might actually do better down in Africa than the full kind. But probably every humanoid living outside the equator would starve to death, and anyway it's not like the uber-Bantu would produce any Beethovens. Far from it.

But then again: I suppose some leavening of non-Bantu blood would be just enough to make the quad-Bantus do something stupid, like write crappy poetry about Blackness instead of just collecting palm oil or whatever it is they do and crap out more black babies so enough will survive to maturity to continue the humanoidish species. A conundrum . . . .

But yeah it's not like mixed babies would launch nuclear warfare or anything because the Industrial Revolution would be over. So I guess that point's in his favor.

Probably the most fun part of all of this is the amazingly low-cost to all this winning. Our Dark Lord is going to be in there heads for months just because he published a good book. It'll be even more fun when the 3-book cycle is complete before Scalzi finishes his.

Does this set a record for the length of a fake review?Sir: I do believe you are correct. Think I will record this one star in my permanent records. But for their numbers, it's almost embarrassing to call these people opponents.

In the mean time, on the alt-media front, it appears the SJW's have fully admitted they've lost the public debate.

They have now mobilized all resources in major multinationals of the globalist bent and gone on an all out campaign of financial terrorism against youtube with a simple message: "Shut down dissent against us and the MSM narrative or else"

Reports are coming in of mass demonetization and purges of youtube channels that dissent against feminism and islam that make the twitter purges look like stubbed toes. The situation is still developing and will likely take 2 weeks to a month before its effects are fully deployed and documented.

So far PJW and ComputingForever are the only ones giving this significant mention.

The funniest part of this whole episode is the continued butthurt over Vox being nominated to the best editor slot for the Hugos. Notice a large number of the fake reviews attack the editing of the book. That is because they are still not over Vox's Hugo nomination in that category.

Whoever the real author of Corrosion is, congratulations and well done. I haven't read it yet and already want to support you and Castalia further when a hardcover edition is available.

There is nothing so fun as embarrassing SJW's at their own game and watching the looks of constrained fury they can never admit they feel.

I was stuck with a bunch of women and a few limp-wristed men in a compulsory college writing class. The required subject for our midterm paper was Environmentalism. I couldn't write it in good faith, so I wrote it in bad faith, imitating the worst tree-hugging SJW's I'd ever known.

The paper was given and A+ and voted as the best paper by the class. The instructor was urging me to submit it to a writing competition, but first asked me to read the entire thing before the class. So, I did.

They then had the usual class discussion on the subject and near the end I was asked how I came to such beautiful and perceptive insights. I told them I simply pretended I was one of them and that I didn't believe any of it, wrote it to spoof their absurd positions and then proceeded to tear apart the theses of the paper.

Oh glorious agony. The expressions and anger were priceless. Needless to say, the instructor withdrew his support for me submitting in competition.

Why can't they be social justice rogues, or social justice clerics? it shows an astonishing lack of creativity that SJW's cannot even fill out a balanced party.Having to admit your tank can't heal is like acknowledging a Muslim isn't American. Verboten to an Equals.

It would be interesting to see Amazon's reaction if someone wrote a similar review of The Collapsing Empire. Ie, admitting that they hadn't read the book and simply writing shit about the author and publisher.

If Amazon takes it down while leaving all the fake reviews up for Castalia house, that would tend to prove Amazon is biased.

#4 & #7 - yep - these self-anointed "expert" SJW reviewers, so full of themselves and their critical analysis skills, regularly slaughter the English language. Typos obviously happen, and most folks won't jump on people for that. But SteelPalm noted the idiocy that really jumps off the page. When one decides to be an authority on being an authority, and bitch-whining about some one else's editing skills, these mistakes are inexcusable.

Your book has been available on all book pirating sites http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=1293&t=2001538

So it is pointless to claim how negative reviews must be fake because they are not verified purchasers. I read some of it and I am no verified purchaser and I have no interest in paying anything based on what I have read. Most people will have such reaction after "sampling" it, considering its low quality...

I'm still working through Corrosion, and enjoying every e-page of it. The story is rich, and certainly seems to be a serious work of fiction (whether it was meant to be, or no). To me, the whole thing seems to be a metaphor of the dangers of central planning and the law of unintended consequences (question to self: is the law of unintended consequences simply the uncertainty principle writ large?). Especially chilling was the SJW-like actual nonpersoning of a character, carried out by soulless machines (so the righteous don't get their precious hands dirty).

So far, the book is a delight to read, and I suspect a 5-star review is coming. To anybody still on the fence, get this book, it's another winner from CH, and a brilliant debut work from Johann Kalsi, Space Ma--- er, Finnish Marine,

@51 It's not just stupidity, it's the poverty of the writing. It's dull, lifeless, dreary; there's not one scrap of craftsmanship anywhere. This is a book review from someone who does NOT read, or at least, does not read anything of even the slightest quality.

So it is pointless to claim how negative reviews must be fake because they are not verified purchasers. I read some of it and I am no verified purchaser and I have no interest in paying anything based on what I have read. Most people will have such reaction after "sampling" it, considering its low quality...

You're still obviously a fake reviewer. You can try to hide behind piracy all you like. And it won't be long before Amazon stops permitting unverified purchasers to review because of fake reviewers like you.

You just want to smack pretentious lalawads such as Milne. He didn't read the book. Enough said, so he can shut up. He's produced a polemic, not a book review, and hijacked the book review process towards his own end. That's contemptible. And his facts are, ... as facts tend to be in POLEMICS.

@59 a convincing picture of the poor mental state of his audience.You should be glad our mental state isn't that low, or, we might, you know, act like the anti Trump protestors complete with clubs, eh, flags on sticks.

Now, now, Harry Seldon is only the most famous Sci-Fi character of the entire Golden Age. Just because he's in the book that inspired both the Scalzi and Kalsi novels under discussion, doesn't mean he's relevant.

I thought the book was going to be a joke, which I was going to enjoy. Then I sat down to read it. I read Foundation, forty years ago. Asimov was a good idea man, but he wasn't an exceptional writer. Corroding Empire is good science fiction. I have a stack of books I am working my way through. They all got pushed aside, and I finished this one because it is entertaining and fun.

That pirated copy was posted yesterday so it's unlikely that a significant number of the unverified reviews come from it. Still. it's entertaining to think how much more popular than its amazon ranking it must be if it's indeed available "on all book pirating sites".

The Harry Seldon thing is too funny. I've never read Foundation, and even I knew as soon as the new author, title, and cover went up that there had to be another joke behind all three. Know thy enemy, SJW. Or just keep projecting your way to embarassing failure. That works, too.

Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (Harry Seldon) on the cover, as well as not having the identical artwork, fonts, and positioning of the words as an other considerably higher selling book. In other words, the book by Mr Seldon would be allowed to stand on it's own two feet and (bla bla bla bla)

Priceless! The writer clearly a newcomer to the entire genre."the real author Harry Seldon" indeed. Cheesy cover art is traditional and beloved.The piece also betrays the fact that the fellow is unfamiliar with the concept of trolling. Hilarious.

You know, if you're really so determined to have me actually purchase this book, you could try pitching it to me as luxury toilet paper. I'm already down to just four pages of the copy of Twilight that I got given on a "Buy One, Get One Free" basis from a shopkeeper who thought I should at least try it. Sadly it turned to be crap and so its pages have been used both for emergency toilet purposes and for fuelling campfires when out with friends. Ditto the Scientology leaflets I get through my door, and likewise the Bible that a Jehovah's Witness posted through my door (I think I'm almost done with using the whole of the Old Testament for toilet/fire purposes). Also used the other 6 Narnia books (inexplicably not entitled "If you don't want to read the Bible, just read this, it's pretty much the same book") that aren't "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", after making the error of buying the whole set from a bargain bin.

Oh, and before someone here inevitably accuses me of how being scared to ever do that to a Koran, rest assured that if you simply mail me a copy, I'd be happy to use it for the same reasons.